If we go into the city, the famine is also there, and we’ll still die. But if we stay here, we’ll die. So let’s go to the Aramean camp. If they give us something to keep us alive, we’ll live. But if they kill us, we’ll die anyway.”
(The Lord had made the Aramean army hear what sounded like chariots, horses, and a large army. The Aramean soldiers said to one another, “The king of Israel has hired the Hittite and Egyptian kings to attack us!”
The prince who is among you will put his bags on his shoulders in the dark and leave. People will dig holes in the wall to go through. The prince will cover his face so that he cannot see the land.
“A firstborn animal already belongs to the Lord because it was born first. Therefore, it cannot be set apart as holy. Whether it is a bull or a sheep, it belongs to the Lord.
But the person who is too poor to pay the required amount must stand in front of the priest. The priest will determine the amount based on what the person can afford.
Foreign wars will kill off their children, and even at home there will be horrors. Young men and young women alike will die as well as nursing babies and gray-haired men.
How could one person chase a thousand or two people make ten thousand flee? Their rock used these people to defeat them and the Lord gave them no help.